His immediate pressing necessity struck like a pulse through all the
chords of dismal conjecture. His heart flying about for comfort, dropped
at Emilia's feet.

"Bella's right," he said, reverting to the green page in his hand; "we
can't involve others in our scrape, whatever it may be."

He ceased on the spot to be at war with himself, as he had been for many
a day; by which he was taught to imagine that he had achieved a mental
indifference to misfortune. This lightened his spirit considerably. "So
there's an end of that," he emphasized, as the resolve took form to tell
Lady Charlotte flatly that his father was ruined, and that the son,
therefore, renounced his particular hope and aspiration.

"She will say, in the most matter-of-fact way in the world, "Oh, very
well, that quite alters the case," said Wilfrid aloud, with the smallest
infusion of bitterness. Then he murmured, "Poor old governor!" and
wondered whether Emilia would come to this place according to his desire.
Love, that had lain crushed in him for the few recent days, sprang up and
gave him the thought, "She may be here now;" but, his eyes not being
satiated instantly with a sight of her, the possibility of such happiness
faded out.

"Blessed little woman!" he cried openly, ashamed to translate in tenderer
terms the soft fresh blossom of love that his fancy conjured forth at the
recollection of her. He pictured to himself hopefully, moreover, that
she would be shy when they met. A contradictory vision of her eyes
lifted hungry for his first words, or the pressure of his arm displeased
him slightly. It occurred to him that they would be characterized as a